Love is friendship set on fire

I've been in a lot of different relationships, ranging from long term and loving to week long sexual flings. Although I've had the best relationships with girls I've been friends with for quite some time, they spawn from a mutual confession of a 'crush' for one another and bloom from there.

The only draw-back from a relationship that spawns from being good friends to begin with is that when the relationship ends, which most inevitably do, generally so does the friendship. If the friendship doesn't end, then it's safe to say that it is never the same again.

I heard a very good quote from a very wise man who said "Love is friendship set on fire"... This can be taken many different ways, considering the intensity of the flame and 'keeping the flame alive'. If the flame were to go out, all that would be left is a smoldering pile. Rather profound, but it seems to make sense to me.

I have just started getting close to one of my friends recently. Her and I have found much to build a relationship on as well. The problem is that I just recently lost a friend I've had for the past 5 years because her and I hooked up. The girl I'm with now is great, and I'll have to see what happens. I was just wondering what all of your opinions are on this matter, and maybe some experiences you may have had in the past.

How ya doing, buddy?

i'm with Devo. Friends not being friends after dating is total shit.
So long as the 2 parties involved want to keep the friendship going afterwards, and don't try to convince themselves that things are totally changed, then there should be no problem.
Just MAKE SURE that, before you really start getting serious, she be aware that you would desire to remain friends above all, and that if you 2 getting close will cause problems with that, then you would rather break up and remain friends, than cause any possible alienation. (woah... that is a hell of a lot of clauses)
This right there however is a good way to increase the odds that the 2 of you will last longer than usual. ;-) This is because you have already broken ground for talking clearly about your relationship with her.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I'm still friends with a lad a dated after we broke up so i disagree with the statement of not being able to remain friends after a breakup. However to contradict that I did date one lad who i was good mates with before and he didn't want to remain friends. Now whether thats because he couldn't handle it or whether he was jealous of the new lad who had took my fancy I don't know. So i think it's swings and roundabouts. If you had a really good friendship before the relationship I think you're more then likely to remain friends after a spilt up, but if you wern't that close to begin with I think theres no point in trying to remain friends. But thats just my opinion.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I'm broken up on the matter since alot of times its hard to continue some type of friendship as far as high school romances go because they move away or you just lose communication. But I agree with everyone in saying that even though you do break up, you won't lose the friendship unless you don't try to continue it.

I severed all ties with my ex cause she was..well..she more or less cheated on me if you consider emailing your ex telling him you still love him and what not cheating, which I do consider to be cheating.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I don’t think its the romance part of a relationship that makes maintaining friendship difficult or impossible. It’s the fact that what’s desired from the relationship – plutonic or romantic – is not even enough on both sides. This is what makes maintaining friendship hard. This only becomes an issue when disparity between both parties is large enough that one party can no longer deal with it. Or, when people are just too plan lazy to try. Regardless, the romantic part is the not the cause for making a post friendship hard. It just reveals an fundamental unbalance that was already there to begin with. Because of this, I personally think if you can’t maintain a friendship afterwards, then you probably weren’t much that good of ‘friends’ to begin with. Splitting ways would only be healthy.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I set my friend on fire once and it didn't lead to much except a hospital bill and a restraining order.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

"Love ain't nothing but sex misspelled"

FELIPE NO

So.... we all secretly want to have sex with our parents?

Sick

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Oedipus/Elektra Complex - though I think the Elektra Complex has been thrown out by medical science

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Ive only really had one long-term girlfriend, and it ended good, until a while ago. We were just friends, which was hard, but it was going okay. Then i heard that she had cheated on me while we were together, and I asked her if it was true, she freaked out cause I woudlnt tell her who told me, she hit me as hard as she could, and threw my laptop against the wall. So, no friends after relationships sounds good to me.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Delorean

Ive only really had one long-term girlfriend, and it ended good, until a while ago. We were just friends, which was hard, but it was going okay. Then i heard that she had cheated on me while we were together, and I asked her if it was true, she freaked out cause I woudlnt tell her who told me, she hit me as hard as she could, and threw my laptop against the wall. So, no friends after relationships sounds good to me.

So you base the entire manner in which you act with women on one isolated incident?:eyebrow:
Smart.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

So, here's the thing. The fact that you have mutal crushes on each other means the relationship is already taken to the next level. Using the "but I don't want to ruin the friendship" excuse is illogical, because either way, the friendship is already ruined. You might as well date and get something out of it and hope it works out ok afterwards, instead of just pretending like nothing happened when it obviously did already.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by nadienne

because either way, the friendship is already ruined.

I disagree wholeheartedly.
I have had many friendships where there has been mutual attraction, and with two of them we even dated a bit, and we still remain good friends.

I was speaking idiomatically.

It still can work out. After the first date, if both people are willing to forget the conversation about crossing that line and the date, the friendship still can be salvaged. It just requires both to excise it from memory and go one with life.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Originally Posted by xiaowei

It still can work out. After the first date, if both people are willing to forget the conversation about crossing that line and the date, the friendship still can be salvaged. It just requires both to excise it from memory and go one with life.

Denial just isn't in my bag of tricks... I don't do it.

How ya doing, buddy?

You've already run across the bridge and knocked a couple bolts out. The friendship is weakened by default. You can try to hold that friendship and try to not let the awkward moements get in the way. Denial helps. I never said it was the best option, but it's a solution that makes things a lot easier.

Burning the bridge, however, just might be the best choice.

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Bull. I can think of one girl i've been with (possibly two, complicated circumstances, i can't be sure of at the moment) who i'm not currently great friends with. In fact, i'm better friends with some of them than i was before we dated. The belief that mutual attraction destroys a friendship is wrong, i'm living proof that it can help build a friendship.

How ya doing, buddy?

I just recently started talking to one of my ex's again, her and I dated for about 3 years and it ended terribly... her and I hadn't spoken for about a year and half, and we are better friends now that we talk again and I forgave her for what she did... but initially in my experiences immediate friendship after being in love for so long is just a fairy tale.

most of the relationships I'm talking about have ended badly, so I suppose my experiences are different than most that have been mentioned.

I -have- broken up a relationship in a civil manner with a friend, and we are still friends; but like I said, it's not the same anymore. I think it comes down to a balance... if the breakup is as mutual as the hookup, then it's a clean cut and nothing changes... but if one person does the breakup and the other isn't prepared for it, it changes some things. Her and I act very differently around each other now.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I personally think that the reason, after you break up, the friendship dies because of Fear. Part of is when you get to be with someone, what if the feelings rise again? I've gone through that quite a bit with my second g/f. It was actually pretty good though because we wound up going out again but broke up because of alot of things....but none the less, if you want to be friends you can.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

The whole friends after a relationship thing often doesn't work out, but it's not a clear cut thing. It's an issue of unrequited feelings from one party for the other that causes trouble.

If Fred and Sally are friends, then go out for a while. But then Fred fancies someone else, and Sally continues to harbour feelings for Fred, it's a painful situation for Sally if they do remain friends. She may eventually get over it, and things will be fine again, but in the meantime she is hurt.

What often happens is that the party which no longer has feelings for the other doesn't notice (intentionally or not) that the other still likes them. This can go on for years, all the while the one who was 'dumped' is hurt. This explains why many are of the opinion "Oh, it's great. We're are friends just like nothing ever happened."

The other common thing to happen is that the person who still harbours feelings, and feels hurt and rejected when the two hang out. But they'll deny this to themselves and others, and pretend that they are satisfied with the state of their relationship.

Then of course, there are situations which work out great, and no one likes the other romantically after they are done. But really, what are the odds that over night, magically both people will decide that they didn't really like each other afterall? It must happen, but to believe that it's anywhere near the norm sounds delusional to me.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I had a girlfriend who I broke up with just over a year ago now. It wasn't a mutual split, so I decided to go my own way and start a fresh. You see, this girl was one of those people who had a lot of difficulty seeing things from another person's point of view, she was quite an attention seeker, and she wasn't happy if she didn't get her own way.

My answer to this? If the break-up is mutual, then by all means retain a friendship, as long as its stable. If the break-up isn't mutual, and dependant on the circumstances, then fuckin move on dude! When we broke up, she wanted to be friends. But i was like "Whoa, just a minute! You've fucked me around and acted all sorry for something you could have controlled but no, you decide to play around with the whole situation don't you? Think you can pull off all that shit and get away with it? Fuckin got another thing coming!"

I realised sumthin straight away when we broke up, i wanted to go my own way, not because I couldnt handle any of it, or had a fuckin fanny about whoever they'd date next. It was because it dawned on me that she was just a burden on me. She dragged me down. She made my life less enjoyable. She was a ball and chain.

Ever since then my life's been great, made a big group of new, much better friends, met a girl who I dated who was a far much better person than my ex. we were an item for a while, and then we split over a mutual understanding, and we're still friends, and we've even said that we may get back together some day, but not right now. Plus, my life has constantly been on the up, been able to do so much more, have a much bigger and better social life, and generally finding life a breeze overall!

The lesson? Don't remain attached to those who just drag you down, otherwise you'll hit a downward spiral. Focus on the good things, those that make everything worthwhile, give them all of your attention, and things will just get better.

I was speaking idiomatically.